Posts tagged Dhaka

The Kamrangirchar peninsula was formerly used as a dumping ground for Dhaka’s trash. Over the past several decades, however, more and more people began to live in the area. Covering just three square kilometers, the area is now home to 400,000...

The Kamrangirchar peninsula was formerly used as a dumping ground for Dhaka’s trash. Over the past several decades, however, more and more people began to live in the area. Covering just three square kilometers, the area is now home to 400,000 people- most of who have migrated from other parts of Bangladesh.

Many are suffering from diarrhoeal diseases and skin rashes, often as a direct result of the unhygienic living conditions in this heavily polluted area. Toxic waste from Dhaka’s industries is released into the Buriganga river, where many people from Kamrangirchar bathe and wash their clothes. Families often live in cramped living conditions, with up to ten people sharing a room. Apart from MSF’s clinics, there are no health structures in Kamrangirchar that provide free medical care.

Urban Survivors is a multimedia project by Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in collaboration with the NOOR photo agency and Darjeeling Productions, highlighting the critical humanitarian and medical needs that exist in slums the world over.

Photo: © Stanley Greene/Noor

When you look at urban survival in a place like Bangladesh, it takes on another connotation and when you try to understand how people can live in houses built of sticks in swamps and garbage, I mean and try to survive without getting sick, or living life until death, it all seems very difficult.

- Stanley Greene

Urban Survivors is a multimedia project by Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in collaboration with the NOOR photo agency and Darjeeling Productions, highlighting the critical humanitarian and medical needs that exist in slums the world over.

“First off, I couldn’t breathe because of the smell then second..there’s people washing in a river absolutely polluted with garbage, dead animals, dead fruit, drinking it, bathing in it, swimming in it, I mean that in itself has to be unsafe,...

“First off, I couldn’t breathe because of the smell then second..there’s people washing in a river absolutely polluted with garbage, dead animals, dead fruit, drinking it, bathing in it, swimming in it, I mean that in itself has to be unsafe, unsanitary.” - Stanley Greene

14.8 million people are currently living in Dhaka. The city’s population has doubled in the last 20 years. The growth of industries like jute and garment manufacturing continues to draw ever more Bangladeshis into the city. The poorest slum inhabitants run a high risk of contracting communicable diseases due to overcrowding, unsanitary and substandard housing, and lack of access to quality health care. There are now more than 5,000 slum areas in Dhaka and development of infrastructure and health facilities is struggling to keep pace.

Urban Survivors is a multimedia project by Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in collaboration with the NOOR photo agency and Darjeeling Productions, highlighting the critical humanitarian and medical needs that exist in slums the world over.

Urban Survivors take the visitor on a virtual journey through five slums- in Dhaka, Johannesburg, Karachi, Nairobi and Port-au-Prince- where MSF is running projects. The website lets the visitor discover more about the daily lives of people in these slums, the challenges they face, and what MSF is doing to address their humanitarian needs.

Urban Survivors features photo material by renowned, award-winning NOOR photographers Stanley Greene, Alixandra Fazzina, Francesco Zizola, Jon Lowenstein and Pep Bonet.

Photo: © Stanley Greene/Noor